Garage design ideas

[dantecl]

Hey folks,

Just getting into a new house later this month or early April, and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to lay out the garage. The space is pretty huge, it's a 3 car garage with just over 1000sqft. Right now it's separated by a wall being a 2+1 space, but I'm going to demolish that wall and make it one big space. The main thing I'm trying to figure out is storage, cabinets and workbench. Are any of you using a software to help design this and optimize cuts and such, or just freestyling? I'm not keen on hitting my local Habitat for Humanity Restore because I don't wanna deal with matching one-off cabinets, especially given that the main wall I'm putting these on is about 30ft (deep 2 car garage space). Searched around for some ideas but running thin. The NewAge steel cabinets look pretty decent, but to build what I'd want in that space I'd be looking at several thousand.

What are others doing for initial design? Trying to keep this somewhat cost-effective.

 

[VM Builders]

We use Sketchup to plan out most of our jobs. I believe there is or was a free option.

 

[buildingup]

graph paper or sketchup. When I designed my barn I did it initially on graph paper to get an idea what I wanted then created it in sketchup for fine tuning and layout with vehicles, pallet racking, and camper inside. Worked out very well

 

[nc.detail]

That's a good amount of space. How do you plan on using it? Here's my layout at around 800sq ft. I have gladiator cabinets and switching to their gray/white cabinets this spring as I'm redoing the neglected single bay garage.

far by Larry Bishop, on Flickr

 

[VM Builders]

Beautiful space!

 

[WeAreGarageGuys]

Hello! I think the layout and design idea is really dependent on how you plan to use the space. Are you just parking cars? Working on cars? Adding a lift? Detailing cars inside? Do you have a lot of clutter that needs organizing?

 

[bdbecker]

I wouldn't be in a big hurry to remove that wall until you know for sure what your layout is going to be. It might end up being handy having a separate space, depending on the type of work you are planning on doing.

Also, it'd be worthwhile to make sure it isn't load bearing before you design a layout assuming you can remove it.

 

[Falcon67]

Graph paper, pencil, tape on the floor. Old school, but it works. And I'm an IT guy with all kinds of tech available. I also used Visio, just made up some shape blocks and loaded some tool shapes and that works pretty well. However, what looks good on paper lots of time fails when taped out on the floor full size. Even pieces of cardboard used to represent the base of tools, lift foot pads, etc. works wonders.

 

[Deude_Mann]

I am working on a garage layout right now for a 30'x40' that I will be building over the next few months. MS Visio is a good suggestion and I have used it for the very same thing. But if you do not have a copy you can get OpenOffice which is a completely decent freeware version of MS Office published by Apache (legit). It has a program called "Draw" which is very similar to Visio and can be used for 2D floorplan layouts.

Here is the one I am working on now. For scale I use 1" equals 1' or put another way 1:12. In the center is the garage floor viewed from above with various rectangles made to represent items that will go in the shop. In the margins are various items I drag in and out as I am brainstorming.



Software link
https://www.openoffice.org/

 

[CraigStu]

I haven't used software to do my garage but did do a complete redesign of a stock house plan the builder offered. For the garage I knew where the power was coming in (right rear corner) which worked out just fine as it was cheap and easy to add a 240V outlet near there. The welders and the air compressor all work from that one outlet. Other than that I had them install a 120V outlet every 6 feet at 48 inches off the floor. Outlets on the right wall and near the front on one breaker. Outlets across the back and left side on another breaker. Lights on a 3rd breaker. Re; cabinets. In our previous garage I used a bunch of HD unfinished kitchen cabinets and base cabinets. Coated as fast as I could w/ solid color stain in light grey. They are light duty so I had to be careful what I put in them. The drawers in the base cabinets got a piece of 1/4 in plywood laid in them because the 1/8 in stuff sagged too much. An 8ft stock off the shelf Formica counter top became my work bench. The only negative there was it wasn't strong enough for my large vice. Kept meaning to reinforce it but moved first. Recently I happened across a roll of wrapping paper that had one inch squares on the back side to aid in cutting it straight. That would be a real inexpensive way to lay out your garage w/ pieces of card board cut to size to represent benches, power tools etc.

 

[iamhomeless]

Go get a tape measure and some cardboard, build a scale model of the shop and everything you might want to put in it.

 

[dantecl]

That's a good amount of space. How do you plan on using it? Here's my layout at around 800sq ft. I have gladiator cabinets and switching to their gray/white cabinets this spring as I'm redoing the neglected single bay garage.

far by Larry Bishop, on Flickr

Hello! I think the layout and design idea is really dependent on how you plan to use the space. Are you just parking cars? Working on cars? Adding a lift? Detailing cars inside? Do you have a lot of clutter that needs organizing?

I wouldn't be in a big hurry to remove that wall until you know for sure what your layout is going to be. It might end up being handy having a separate space, depending on the type of work you are planning on doing.

Also, it'd be worthwhile to make sure it isn't load bearing before you design a layout assuming you can remove it.

I'll be using the garage mostly for car stuff. I have several cars in various stages of "project" and those will be dealt with accordingly. This garage will absolutely NOT be used as an actual parking garage. Currently planning on having a corner bench dedicated to electronics, but most of it will be car stuff. I'll also finally be able to put up compressed air piping through the garage, as I bought and rebuilt a destroyed 2-stage Jenny/Emglo 60gal compressor that is quite nice. I'd like to have my various tools stored in cabinets and/or chests as much as possible, as my previous garage only had space for open shelving that lead to everything getting super dirty in a short amount of time. Also looking forward to be able to drive any one of my cars into the garage for service, and be able to close the door with the car lifted if I need to take another day to complete whatever project it is.

I'm taking a look at sketchup right now to see if I can get a trial, but will also be looking at other options as mentioned.

I think a big part of it resides on what the structural engineer will tell me next week, and what the cost of removing that wall is. Already got a quote for a polyurea floor finish, but we'll see how things go. Thank you everyone for the recs!!!

-d

 

[jgromada]

That's a good amount of space. How do you plan on using it? Here's my layout at around 800sq ft. I have gladiator cabinets and switching to their gray/white cabinets this spring as I'm redoing the neglected single bay garage.

far by Larry Bishop, on Flickr

Super nice photo, thanks for sharing that. I did have a few questions though. What do you have on the floor? It looks like slatwall on the far side wall. Is that correct? Did you build it?

Also regarding that comment about Open Office drawing tool. I did not realize it had Visio type functionality . I will have to try it out. I use Visio all the time at work is there any compatibility there?

 

[SWR_Jonathan]

That's a good amount of space. How do you plan on using it? Here's my layout at around 800sq ft. I have gladiator cabinets and switching to their gray/white cabinets this spring as I'm redoing the neglected single bay garage.

far by Larry Bishop, on Flickr

Slick!!

 

[VM Builders]

Oh this project starting to sound like a lot of fun. I forgot to mention if you have an I pad, they have apps that are easy to use to build mock ups of buildings and you can add furniture etc. If you need any help with drawings or renderings let me know.

 

[dantecl]

Oh this project starting to sound like a lot of fun. I forgot to mention if you have an I pad, they have apps that are easy to use to build mock ups of buildings and you can add furniture etc. If you need any help with drawings or renderings let me know.

That’s really cool! Which app do you recommend? I can definitely put my ipad to use


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[astroracer]

Look at the Grizzly Shop Planner. You can layout your "shop" to your exact dimensions and there is a lot of canned equipment that you can use for layout. Even a dog and cat...
https://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner
I will also add putting all of your equipment on casters makes your shop totally free to reconfigure to any layout you need. My shop has one bench and a milling machine that are stationary. Everything else is mobile, even the hydraulic press and the stomp shear.
Mark

 

[Black300zx]

The NewAge steel cabinets look pretty decent, but to build what I'd want in that space I'd be looking at several thousand. .

I went with these bolt-together black Husky cabinets (standing and wall-mounted) when they went on sale and I've been very happy. If you're not in a rush, Home Depot usually puts their storage cabinets on clearance once every few months. The wall cabinets (below) usually drop to ~$88 and the standing cabinet drops to ~$185. I really like the integrated pegboard inside the doors.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-2...Steel-Garage-Wall-Cabinet-G2802W-US/206288225

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-7...Steel-Tall-Garage-Cabinet-G3002T-US/305501547

 

[mbryson]

Look at the Grizzly Shop Planner. You can layout your "shop" to your exact dimensions and there is a lot of canned equipment that you can use for layout. Even a dog and cat...
https://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner
I will also add putting all of your equipment on casters makes your shop totally free to reconfigure to any layout you need. My shop has one bench and a milling machine that are stationary. Everything else is mobile, even the hydraulic press and the stomp shear.
Mark

I'm going to have to take a look at the grizzly.com/workshopplanner. Been looking for something cooler than the room designer thing I have been using.

 

[250]

Look at the Grizzly Shop Planner.

I've used it a couple times. The interface is a little clunky, but it's 100% free.

 

[bts]

Look at the Grizzly Shop Planner. You can layout your "shop" to your exact dimensions and there is a lot of canned equipment that you can use for layout. Even a dog and cat...
https://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner
I will also add putting all of your equipment on casters makes your shop totally free to reconfigure to any layout you need. My shop has one bench and a milling machine that are stationary. Everything else is mobile, even the hydraulic press and the stomp shear.
Mark

This Grizzly planner looks good, I like being able to place the little symbols around the shop plan.
One problem does anyone know if it can be converted to metric. This changing from metric to imperial is annoying.

Tony